> You can put on your CV that you have such and such a reputation but it amounts
to nothing in dollar terms for you. I have better things to do with my time [...]
That's one way of seeing it. Another way it is that you're part of this hive-mind of people who can afford to occasionally help a random stranger on a topic you care about. Other people do crosswords or sudoku instead.
As a consequence of helping that hive-mind to exist, you can also query it. But ultimately it is a limited resource, so attention and response quality can a be a bit random.
Yes, SE is heavily gamified, monetizes your contributions, exploits your sense of status/vanity. But it's the place where I least mind it. I like being tricked into writing about a topic I care about (refreshing my knowledge instead of scrolling news and being politically manipulated). I like being tricked into writing helpful answers (instead of controversial comments).
Personally, I only asked a single question on Math (but wrote a lot of answers on SO). Maybe knowing how it works helps, but I got an excellent answer (and the name of the problem I was trying to solve).
I've only asked a question once on Math SE without hoping for an answer (in regards to compactness of the set of densities of equivalent martingale measures, a very narrow topic), when I was completely stuck on it while writing my PhD thesis.
To my surprise, I got a very detailed response and a rigorous proof that took me a while to grasp and, on its own, was worth publishing in a journal since this hadn't been previously researched in detail and some authors were even making wrongful assumptions about it. This not only let me finish the thesis, but I've eventually met the kind responder in person. (We were even thinking of eventually publishing this together but never got to finishing it as a standalone work, maybe we should...)
// Fun fact: many years later, someone commented on the same mathse topic - "this has been already proven here - <link to the pdf of my thesis>"
Yes, one aspect I always liked about MathOverflow was it gave some of the experts in the field a low friction way of sharing their knowledge when compared with conventional publishing or even pre-prints. They have far more ideas and knowledge than time or inclination to write them all down.
Of course, now that I work in tech, I’m thinking it’s not unlike how Snapchat and TikTok have led to far more “content creation”.
> How do I ask a homework question on this website?
> Please put some work into formulating your question. Please do not just copy and paste the exact question text from your homework sheet. In particular, when you are asking for help, writing in imperative mode ("Show that...", "Compute...", or "Prove or find a counterexample: ...") is at the very least impolite: you are, after all, trying to ask a question, not give an assignment. It also turns many people off.
> ...
> Show your work. You should definitely include any partial work you have done. This will help bolster your claim that you are not just coming here asking other people to do your homework for you, and it will help the answerers to give more clinical responses. Showing your work will help us gauge where you are having problems: if it is a technical thing near the end, a short to the point answer will suffice; if it is some fundamental problem with understanding the subject, we will then write a longer, more detailed response. It will also prevent people from spending a lot of time going over ground that you have already covered or understand well already.
From the author's conclusion after outlining concrete examples:
When you read the terms and conditions of Stack Exchange (which is I see as nothing more than
a vanity product for mathematically inclined people with delusions of grandeur), you realise what
an outrageous system it is. The Stack Exchange owns all your intellectual property!! That is
the ultimate vanity product dressed up as a sel
ess community-spirited venture. They can ride
o the coat tails of all your work and ultimately publish aggregated material for a fee and you
get nothing. You can put on your CV that you have such and such a reputation but it amounts
to nothing in dollar terms for you. I have better things to do with my time than support a
business model that is so o ensive to people trying to understand mathematics. But given that
stumbling on a good response (which do exist by the way) is a bit like a random walk, do you
feel lucky?
> You agree that any and all content, including without limitation any and all text, graphics, logos, tools, photographs, images, illustrations, software or source code, audio and video, animations, and product feedback (collectively, “Content”) that you provide to the public Network (collectively, “Subscriber Content”), is perpetually and irrevocably licensed to Stack Overflow on a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive basis pursuant to Creative Commons licensing terms (CC BY-SA 4.0), and you grant Stack Overflow the perpetual and irrevocable right and license to access, use, process, copy, distribute, export, display and to commercially exploit such Subscriber Content,
So, Stack Exchange does not "all your intellectual property". You still control the copyright and free to use it elsewhere - that's the "non-exclusive basis" part.
You can also use someone else's contribution, under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 terms.
This is very far from my experience, when I was an undergraduate, I asked (and answered, when I could) dozens of questions on Math StackExchange.
As long as you do a solid amount of research to make sure the answer isn't already out there, state the problem clearly, put some effort into solving it yourself (e.g. a couple of lines about what you've tried, or where you're stuck in the proof), I've seen good results.
I am CS student. I was having hard time in writing math notations, since I think in programming concept. For this when I ask question at Math Stack Exchange, I always get lynch by them, my questions usually deleted in few hours, now I am scared to ask questions at.
I'll also note that from a previous comment ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33055240 ) you claim to be a PhD student and the questions you are asking may be deeper than the regular freshman calculus question and thus held to a higher standard (expecting use of the proper terms, and using MathJax / LaTeX for more complicated formulas).
Stack exchange in general, as a Q&A site is optimized for being a Q&A site which means that it traded off some of the ability for it to be a general discussion site and questions that need a back and forth explanation session tend to fit poorly within that framework.
If your question is one that needs that back and forth, you may find it better to schedule some time with a professor or grad student in the math department who can provide that denser communication channel and provide real time feedback on the proper terminology.
The original question I asked was: "How can I define programming struct variables as mathematical notation?".
Same question was asked to Math Stack Exchange, downvoted to -5 and deleted.
Re-asked Link: https://cs.stackexchange.com/questions/149204/how-can-i-defi...
In past, during my master studies, I reach to a Professor about guidance and his response was:
"Unfortunately I cannot do code-checking for you. Please
understand. This is absolutely not my duty, but your supervisor's. I am
sorry."
Since then I pull myself back and ask direct help. But a year later when I told him that I somehow complete my work his summary of response was:
"Generally speaking (concerning your situation as a "lone fighter" without much help from your personal environment) -- admire you for how far you have reached."
Hence, I am experiencing the same situation as a PhD student. I cannot even get real time feedback on the proper terminology from my PhD advisor. He laughs at me saying highschool students even know this and throws his other students' papers or heavy Algorithms book at me to learn from.
Because I was not able to properly explain my code using math notation, he gave me an "F" in my semester progress just to motivate me.
Overall, reaching out for help using "Stack exchange" was the only place I felt safe even though I get scared sometimes to ask questions.
I'd suggest to be explicit that you are not familiar with terminology, but willing to learn. It's rather arrogant to assume people with more knowledge adapt to your notation.
Maybe you already did this, in which case it's unfortunate. However, you're the one who has to make sure you communicate as clearly as possible.
I do not know about what question you asked, but there is one type of question which I think people should never ask on the internet. Those are tye questions which can be answered faster than writing down the question.
I don't know what math symbol you were looking for, but I suspect it is in there and most of your questions could have been answered by a few minutes of looking at that list.
Try being a programmer on stackoverflow. They will destroy you if you aren't a well known researcher in the area and can fight back and match smug with smug lol
I dont think this is the case at all. Especially on the math stack exchange I tend to go out of my way to link sources, books, pages, etc where I can find them. There have been times I've made an error not obvious but "simple" and have gotten beaten down to the point I dont even use it anymore. It's no different than stack overflow, where a power tripping mod will mark your question duped with something completely unrelated if the downvote brigade doesnt get to you first.
> The elephant in the room here is that within the mathematics, physics and computer science communities there are a significant proportion of people who are “on the spectrum”. They lack empathy and are usually appalling teachers. If you are a student who has not “clicked” with the subject these people will never get you to a point where you understand it.
Says the author without providing any piece of data or source of information. In particular
- where is the data that shows there's a significant portion of peoples on the spectrum in these fields?
- where's the data or source of information that proves that people on the spectrum are less empathetic?
- where's the data or source of information that proves that people on the spectrum are appaling teachers?
You can't launch such a statement without providing any source of information or data. Please, do good science, specially when talking about a vulnerable group.
Third one is probably extracted from the last two and colored by personal experience. I would tend to agree with the author though "appalling" is a little too strong. When I had a professor who was very obviously on the spectrum the class was often difficult due to either communication issues or assumptions about student skill level. It's not a universal truth, of course, but common enough in my Math and CS classes many of them were often frustrating to take. Stereotypes are often built in reality and while the author's language was strong I don't think the greater point they are making is necessarily wrong, nor unsupported by science as you seem to suggest.
I am with you that it would be nice to provide some sources. On the other hand, after spending time around math students, engineering students and other students and in groups for students with a talent for math, these statements are obviously true. This is not a medical paper, as indicated by the phrase "on the spectrum", but everyone how has experienced these communities knows what the author is referring to. The best math teachers are not the best mathematicians, on average.
I casually googled for sources for some of these claims: These studies do exist. But even if not, I would still think it is valid to talk about this phenomena (taking into account that measuring empathy, teaching ability or mass diagnosing large student bodies are difficult research tasks).
Not only is there strong evidence for exactly that (lack of empathy) to be the case, those who work with autistic people commonly observe it. Moreover, it's now recognized that it may be related to mirror neuron development issues:
That's not a scientific statement. He's broadly characterizing a type of person he sees in the field who lacks empathy.
His use of "on the spectrum" could be considered offensive (similar to "retarded"), depending on whether you read it as him calling them that or read it as him describing what they call themselves. But the problem is not "good science."
The authors central claim is that those good in math (and thus more likely to answer on SE) are also more likely to be on the autism spectrum and lack social skills. I’ve found mixed results on this hypothesis online. Is there anyone with a background in this who can weigh in?
There are also claims, which are not only wrong, but in a dangerous way:
> They lack empathy and are usually appalling teachers
No, autism is not related whatsoever to the lack of empathy! It may be associated with the lack of communication which can be perceived as the lack of empathy - but these are two different things.
The remark about "appalling teachers" is also extraneous. Some are. Some aren't. But it reinforces harmful stereotypes. (I hope) this author won't write such a blanket statement regarding gender, nationality, or ethnicity without strong backing. He shouldn't write on neurodivergence, either.
> No, autism is not related whatsoever to the lack of empathy!
I did a quick google search about this and found:
"Research from 2018 has shown that autistic people may have difficulties with cognitive empathy (recognizing another person’s emotional state) but not affective empathy (the ability to feel another’s emotional state and a drive to respond to it)."
Well obviously. But if you're attacking absolutes, you're attacking a strawman. The argument is whether significantly more autistic teachers are worse than non-autistic ones.
It is that simple. Autistic people have the ability to empathize, but have difficulty recognizing social cues that would ordinarily result in an expression of empathy.
The paper is obscuring this simplicity in jargon. Colloquially, people mostly interpret the term "empathy" in the sense of "the ability to empathize". Thus, when people overload "empathy" to ambiguously mean "the ability to empathize" or "the ability to recognize when to empathize", and then other people assert that "autistic people lack empathy", it produces the misconception that autistic people lack the ability to empathize. And since "the lack of ability to empathize" is associated with sociopathy, this produces the harmful misconception that autistic people are sociopaths. I have met people who have suffered this misconception and are surprised to learn that autistic people have feelings!
> people mostly interpret the term "empathy" in the sense of "the ability to empathize"
I'm not sure this is true, and possibly the same trick you accuse the paper of - you accept only one definition of "empathy" that helps you make your point
Another way to clarify the ambiguity is exactly as I put it - it's not that simple - plenty of people (in layterms) are called unempathic where there is no doubt they are capable of empathy, but choose not to apply it for some reason.
In other words, If you want to make the case the only definition of "empathy" is yours, you'll have to give me a good reason.
> In other words, If you want to make the case the only definition of "empathy" is yours, you'll have to give me a good reason.
Not that poster (and 12 days late) but I want to chime in here because I believe they're right. Let's say the researchers are using definition 2 for empathy whereas the person you're replying to is using definition 1 - purely because I believe most people don't naturally use the researcher's definition.
Let's give a scenario, a friend is working on an essay in a subject that I'm experienced with. They're struggling, they express this by tapping their foot, scratching at their head and shifting in their seat. I'm autistic, I don't respond to any of the gestures because none of them ring any alarm bells for me.
After thirty minutes my friend expresses for the first time openly to me that they're frustrated and they're upset, they want my help. I now understand their experience and I jump in to help, assure them that the subject is just tough and that we can work on it together.
In this scenario researchers using definition 2 for empathy will say I'm incapable of it because I couldn't preempt my friend's feelings without them expressing it explicitly to me. The poster you're replying to using definition 1 says I am capable of empathy, with the caveat that I can't be empathic to emotions I can't detect.
But the researchers didn't pick just pick an alternative definition of the word - they identified two, including the posters definition. This represents a more complete picture of empathy, including your "caveat", than the statement "autism is not related whatsoever to the lack of empathy".
There's also a component of this missing - empathy is usually somewhat non-intentional - as in you don't choose what signals make you feel. It's not clear to me an autistic person told something would have the same impact. Even in non-autistic people, an experienced narrated/described doesn't usually have the same reaction as one experienced, and I think this is an important part of empathy (in a game-theoretic/evolutionary sense) as something that is not calculated.
> There's also a component of this missing - empathy is usually somewhat non-intentional - as in you don't choose what signals make you feel.
This line is very difficult to draw because we freely pollute the meaning of empathy as an internal feeling with empathy as an external behaviour. Under this definition of empathy we could be compelled to consider blind people incapable of empathy as they're incapable of recognising facial expressions, for obvious reasons we know better.
> It's not clear to me an autistic person told something would have the same impact. Even in non-autistic people, an experienced narrated/described doesn't usually have the same reaction as one experienced, and I think this is an important part of empathy (in a game-theoretic/evolutionary sense) as something that is not calculated.
The autistic response isn't calculated either, just lacking the facility to recognise some behavioural expressions of emotion. I'm an autistic man but as a child I recall collecting mountains upon mountains of stuffed toys, when they piled high enough to tumble from the bed I'd wake to some of them on the floor and I'd weep at the thought those toys had felt "left out" by being pushed from the bed overnight. (I was very young, cut some slack)
This kind of refrain is common, autistic people when questioned express feeling intense overwhelming affective empathy. Where autistic people classically struggle is in cognitive empathy employed as a social hierarchy mechanism and in socially acceptable expressions of empathy.
> No, autism is not related whatsoever to the lack of empathy!
Also mentioned below, but https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/broken-mirrors-a-... would suggest exactly that it is related (or better, lack of empathy and autism are concomitant). You do have to consider the role of mirror neurons in empathy to make the connection.
I had a math professor who I'm pretty sure was borderline autistic. His son actually was autistic. While he wasn't the best math teacher I've ever had, he was very good. (Didn't help that I can't comprehend delta-epsilon proofs.)
Would love to see examples that buck the stereotype. That doesnt match my experience but I’m open to believing that my limited higher education experience across 5 schools that matches so many other’s is just coincidence.
I would be for a national math teacher award based on how articulate, sociable, neurotypical, and able to teach they are.
I can't imagine the data is particularly forthcoming. Especially considering the social dynamics autistic people struggle most are verbal tone and body language which don't really affect text based communication.
My experience has been diametrically opposite to this. I've found Stack Exchange communities to be amazing communities to ask deep questions, practice technical writing and even exercise critical thinking skills.
On the Math Exchange I've had nothing but positive experience. The thing to do is first to struggle a bit with the problem and formulate a good question. Asking good question is an incredibly valuable skill. The questions which get treated bad are usually either poorly written and/or the person asking it clearly didn't even spend the bare minimum trying to solve it.
Here are some tips to get your questions answered and upvoted:
1) Spend some time on the problem
2) Describe what you've tried and why according to you that doesn't work or you don't understand it
3) Write in clear language and don't make obvious grammar mistakes
> The questions which get treated bad are usually either poorly written and/or the person asking it clearly didn't even spend the bare minimum trying to solve it.
My thoughts on what usually happens when someones says how bad questions are treated on SO/SE. For reference here's the question referred in the document: https://math.stackexchange.com/q/1464844. Notice how the answer mentioned isn't actually an answer but a comment or, to be precise, a clarifying question since the asked question wasn't specific at all.
While i agree that asking good questions is important you've laid out 3 criteria impossible for most people to achieve. Do work, be thorough and communicate clearly.
So many people I run into cannot even identify keywords for a good web search much less formulate questions and the context needed to get the answers they need.
That's one way of seeing it. Another way it is that you're part of this hive-mind of people who can afford to occasionally help a random stranger on a topic you care about. Other people do crosswords or sudoku instead.
As a consequence of helping that hive-mind to exist, you can also query it. But ultimately it is a limited resource, so attention and response quality can a be a bit random.
Yes, SE is heavily gamified, monetizes your contributions, exploits your sense of status/vanity. But it's the place where I least mind it. I like being tricked into writing about a topic I care about (refreshing my knowledge instead of scrolling news and being politically manipulated). I like being tricked into writing helpful answers (instead of controversial comments).
Personally, I only asked a single question on Math (but wrote a lot of answers on SO). Maybe knowing how it works helps, but I got an excellent answer (and the name of the problem I was trying to solve).